THE CAN CONTEST HAS ENDED.

We will share the results and announce the winner here on the blog on Friday, October 23rd.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated!!

Every week the boys and I drop off food as a donation to our local food pantry.  Especially with the hard times people have been facing in this economy, the need is great and the supply is often much too low.  We sat down for our family dinner a few nights ago and said our dinner prayer as usual.  Jason and I try to talk to our boys often about how blessed we are for all that we have and how we need to help others whenever we can.  At this dinner, we reminded the boys that it was a blessing for us to have the food that was there on the table because there were many people without enough to eat.  Our 4 year old listened, then looked at me and asked how we got our food when others didn’t have any.  I told him that we were blessed to have our business to support our family and put food on the table.  In a moment that filled my heart, he then asked why we didn’t use our business to help to give other people food too.  Through the simplicity of a child’s giving heart (we are so proud of him), we are introducing our Feed the Hungry Can Contest!

For the next four weeks, we are collecting canned food items for our local food pantry.  For every can that you donate, you will receive a .40¢ credit toward any session or product.  The contest ends on Wednesday, October 21st.  At the end of this contest, the person who donates the most cans will receive a free session and a free 8×10 canvas gallery wrap from that session (a value of over $200!).  This can be any type of session:  engagement, boudoir, bridal, trash the dress, maternity, baby, family, or any other type that you choose.

An example of a gallery wrap, though it is a bit larger than an 8×10:

Also, the profit from any print or products ordered from the winning session will be donated to Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

If your session is during the month October and you end up winning the contest at the end of the month, we will reimburse you for your session fee and donate all of the profits from any orders you may have placed. And of course you will still get your free canvas gallery wrap from the session.  Otherwise you win a free session and will have until February 1st, 2010 to use your free session.

You can donate your cans by contacting us to arrange a time to drop them off or, if you have a session before the contest ends, by bringing them to your session.  If you do not want to deal with actual cans, you can mail in gift cards for local grocery stores.  Every $1 on a gift card counts as one can and gets you the .40¢ credit.  All cans or gift cards must be received by Wednesday, October 21st, to be counted in the contest.

Of course, if you just want to drop off cans to be donated we would love that as well!  Any of our family members, or any other wedding professionals or vendors who are reading this, bring up your cans too!

Questions about the contest?  Just email us at jasonangelini@aol.com.  We cannot wait to collect TONS of cans and bring them to the food pantry in time for the holidays!  They can certainly use it.  Whether it is one can or one hundred, we can all share our blessings and contribute to help those in our community who are in need.  This is going to be an awesome contest and we are excited to get started!